Saturday 13th October

We planned to stay in potosi 3 or 4 days, and stay in a 5 star hotel (which was very cheap) for Nikki's birthday, but really there wasnt much to do in Potosi, not even any resturants! So we stayed just 1 1/2 days. Our first night in the hotel (last night) we had a 3 course meal in the hotel restuarant for 4 quid each, how cheap!!!

Anyway today was to be an 'admin day' as we had lots of jobs to do, mainly on the internet, booking flights etc for later on. We headed into the main square, which was quite nice, passing lots of local markets, stalls and beggers etc etc. We spent about 4 hours in the internet cafe doing our jobs, and totally forgot about siesta. We were starving hungry and everything, absolutely everything was closed. So, we raided the minibar in our room for all the chocolate, crisps and drink to keep us going til 7pm when everything opened again. We watched football to pass the time... At 7pm on the dot we went down to the hotel restuarant for another cheap dinner, as we had not seen any other restuarants that day!!! That was pretty much our whole day

Sunday 14th Decemeber

Dynamite day! We booked a morning tour to the mines and were taken to a small house in some small street in town to be kitted out in sexy yellow miners overalls and helmets and head torches. We looked great :o) then we headed off to the miners market where we went to a shop and brought sweets for the miners kids, coca leaves for the miners, and dynamite for ourselves :o) our guide (who used to be a miner for 2 years) took us to the mines (which were closed on sundays so no miners, they play football on this day) and safety being the highest priority we climbed up stacks of mined rocks to reach the mines! We met an old lady (widow) whose job was to sort the good from the bad minerals before going to the refinery. She was very sweet and gave us a piece of silver rock each. (Tom wanted gold)! Next we met a family that lived in the mining hills and gave the kids some sweets before we ventured into the mines. The enterance to the mines are covered in Llama blood cos they sacrifice Llamas to bring good luck to the mines... nice.. The mines were pretty cool, very dark and dusty and pretty dangerous to be honest, with lots of holes and asphestos on the walls!!!!!! We climbed down dodgy ladders with no one holding them and down small holes to the 2nd and 3rd levels. I (lisa) didnt notice the small holes as i just walked through them all, but tom was on his hands and knees most the time!!!! We also went to see the devil statue thing which the miners worship, not very nice, scared us all, we even deleted the picture!! they offer the devil coca leaves, lit cigarettes and pure alcohol, which they believe will provide pure minerals in return! When we finally emerged out of a hole we had to climb up out of, all dusty and relieved to see daylight, we found ourselves a nice area to blow up some dynamite :o) our guide run up a hill, planted the dynamite and lit it as we sang an early happy birthday to Nikki. To our surprise as we were filming the dynamite, our guide ran down the hill and right past us and ran in a bunker, leaving us out in the open filming the explosion!!!! and what an explosion it was, made us all jump and swear!!!!! Awesome way to end our stay in Potosi.

After we jumped in a cab for the 2 hour trip to sucre, costing us all of $10... again much better than the chicken bus, which we were planning to avoid as much as possible whilst in Bolivia, what ever the expense!!!